QuasiWizard

A small system for reputation, for use in haggling and other similar activities.   Keep a list of notable deeds by the party, both good and bad. Keep a list of a standard die size (I think 20 for a campaign would work). Write the good deeds at the lowest numbered entries, in chronological order; and write the bad deeds at the highest entries, in reverse chronological order. The middle of the list stays empty.  Every entry should have a definite moral character to be at top or bottom of list, no in-between. You should decide this based on how the average citizen of your setting would view the party having done it, either impressed or disgusted. If the players want to haggle for prices, call in a favor, or persuade in a rather abstracted social encounter, roll the appropriately sized die (e.g. d20). If the result is a good deed, they can call in a 5% discount on all their purchases, a favor will be granted, or persuasion goes through. If the result corresponds to a bad deed, they are reb

 OK, another edition of media I've consumed recently or is on my radar. Books I finished Book of the New Sun . It's a first non-DNF in sci-fi/fantasy in several years. I had been growing a bit tired of the general genre sphere. But I think this reignited a fair bit of interest back again. I am working through The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe. It's much slower paced and written more clearly than New Sun (for better or for worse). It's quite a classically told, but not trope-ridden, fantasy story. I am looking forward to reading more of it. I started the audiobook of A Wizard of Earthsea . Its writing is kinda bland? I'm not sure how I feel about it, and if my ambiguity is due to the reader. I might buy a physical copy to try it out. Other things on my TBR (some of which I already own): Between Two Fires The Once and Future King Lud-in-the-Mist Crime and Punishment The Portable Jung Man and His Symbols   I'm not a frequent reader but I have the rest of my reading

Most outside the OSR give it some side-eye. Those inside ask "What the hell is water?" and keep playing. I've been borderline obsessed with have reservations... but there's something to it I'd like to explain. Appeal of OSR: genuinely risky. No matter the stage of the game, if you want to progress at a reasonable rate, you have to get into, what has been for me, heart pounding situations.  Tactical gameplay. In a (currently hiatus'ed) Nightwick Abbey megadungeon game, I have been thinking throughout the hiatus of the tactically best way to combat some regular old goblins. Because they're being annoying goblins, and it takes some genuine brain racking. Free-form. I don't know that I'm all about my old "immersive gaming" play after becoming so fond of straight up OSR games. But there's still a strong rules-lite feel to most OSR stuff I am fond of. Your tacti

Just a quick explanation of an OSR dungeon design principle for those unfamiliar. This is maybe not a well-touted idea, but I've been brewing on this idea lately. Of course, this is all centered around how I want to play, run... etc... Take with coarse grained salt if you think your goals are different. If you've got a dungeon, you should have some empty rooms that don't.… do anything. As in, there is nothing 'to do' in the room. I have been brewing this idea based on what Luke Gearing said in his interview on the "Into the Megadungeon" podcast. I'll just rehash what Luke conveyed in my listening: Empty rooms provide a place to rest (my words) Empty rooms give space to a dungeon so that you don't die at every turn Empty rooms are tactically important for managing encounters, especially in conjunction with loops   Luke gave an easy example of how to utilize empty rooms: You pass through some empty rooms, and eventually encounter a big room with a

Alchemy: that ancient and esoteric art that turns rags to riches. Lead to gold. Makes the small and worthless into something wonderous. This is magical. But "alchemy," as a general art, has been turned to other purposes. 1. Haemalchemy (from RuneScape): The process vampires use to refine and concentrate blood. When the final product is consumed, the vampire not only is satiated, but grows in power according to the refinement technique. They can gain extra transmutation powers (turning into a giant cobra, for instance), or influence over nature (cause quakes and floods). 2. Detritus alchemy: the sentient fungus people of the forest carry the materials to rapidly decompose organic material. In a matter of minutes, a log or freshly dead creature can be turned into a stinking pile of mush. 3. Ent alchemy: Turns saplings into sequoias. A botanical growth acceleration. In a matter of minutes, anything more than a seed becomes overgrown, nearly cancerous in its expansion. The result

I posted on tumblr recently about an epiphany I had with regards to dice in the OSR. I'll quote my original text here (with some editing notes): I think I get one of the roles dice play in OSR games, that I didn’t get before. I used to think dice were for randomly deciding between things a human  [at the table] couldn’t fictionally determine, or it would be wrong for one to do so: e.g. does an attack hit in combat? Hard to say in the fiction if all that is said is “I swing my sword” and not super fair for any one person (GM or player) to simply declare. I though this philosophy was also valid for random encounters, reaction rolls, open door checks… but I think there’s something else dice can do. I re-read this blog post , this one too , and watched this Bandit’s Keep video . The first discusses “the oracular power of dice,” th

I have been thinking about OD&D recently. I've been thinking of hacking it into an existing product setting. But I think the classes bug me, at a conceptual level. I have no problems with the mechanics of any of the basic 3 classes; the fighter, cleric, or magic user, nor the optional thief. But I think the classes, being only broad concepts, are a bit lackluster. I think they point to no concrete view of how they fit into the setting, and conceptually tighter classes give better diegetic information. Let's take the fighter for instance. There are many types of armed combatants in fantasy, from soldiers and mercenaries to brawlers (e.g. "barbarian" classes, problematic as that can be). So if you decide to be a fighter, you are supplied with mechanicals, but nothing else that directs how your character fits into the setting. I think this can genuinely detract from play. Let's examine parley. Consider the charisma description in Book 1, which says "the char

Every dungeon should be weird. Living in confined, underground spaces attracts and magnifies weird characteristics. Only the most bizarre of beings and creatures would choose to do such a thing. If you woke up one day and thought, "That old castle outside of town? Oh yeah. We're moving in," then you must have a screw loose. It's absolutely deranged to do such a thing. So, make your dungeons weird. There are different types of weird. All of them could lead to dungeon dwelling. There is garden-variety Just Plain Weird, where you can function but have some generally pretty well-mannered humanoids in a dungeon for that reason. When intrepid adventurers encounter this type of weird, it should be noticeable and juxtaposed with some sorts of normality and acceptable behavior. For example, making your bed after rising in your dank cave, and going to brush your teeth. Then committing unspeakable acts to a for

This spring I ran a megadungeon. As far as campaign statistics are concerned, it was not so impressive. I think we played 7-8 sessions, had a stable of 8 players, some of whom would not show up every session. Still, it was a fun and educational experience. The genesis for this campaign was listening to the "Into the Megadungeon" podcast by Ben Laurence (available via internet search on a variety of platforms). I was particularly enamored by Luke Gearing's lunchtime megadungeon sessions. Sometime later on a flight, I had the idea for the premise of the megadungeon. The original campaign pitch was the following: There is an island at Urth's north pole. It is the last truly wet place. The future was once buried here, in the form of millions and millions of seeds for posterity. But now they have sprouted. They have grown together, genes splicing, mixing, and blending. They have grown, both up and down and into other beings as well, creating a bizarre ecosystem. The old va

If you see a connection between this and my last post, you are on the right track. 1. Guerilla Monkey: small and nimble, with excellent grip strength. Protect monkey society by surprise violence. The signature move is to drop out of trees with rope and garrote the intruders. 2. Gorilla Guard: Big and burly, protect the valuables of simian society. The monkey god is in this form, and thus the gorilla is the holiest of monkeys. Indeed, violence is the rule of the jungle. Who would challenge the mightiest of apes? 3. Tamarin Ascetics. Only those small, frail monkeys which have never touched a banana in their life may be inducted into this order. The virtues extolled by the ascetics include sagacity, cognitive flexibility, and playfulness. The order of Tamarin Ascetics is looked down upon by the majority of simian society, having rejected the stoic and unyielding way of violence. 4. Chimpanzee Inventor: Known for creating tools ranging in utility and efficiency from dead branch inspectors

I'm hosting a RuneScape-inspired game jam. Check it out: https://itch.io/jam/the-grand-exchange and contribute if you would like! It runs the month of August.

This post I feel is in the same vein as a post on the previous blog , the one about Waterfall Quest from Runescape. This one will also feature a Runescape mention.   The King Black Dragon was the first boss monster released Runescape, and it was released without mentioning its location . There's probably no good record of what happened after the release of the news, but I imagine a wild goose chase across every corner of the world map ensued, with the knowledge of such a powerful beast with valuable loot being spread by word of mouth if not kept secret. I think it probably was a fun time for everyone involved, with likely a lot of confusion, deaths, and a few scant victories. There's nothing like setting off into the unknown for a journey which might end in death. It's a tale as old as time, and still motivates people to this day (cf. modern space travel, and the many violence-prone people on Earth today). It seems a timeless thing, although it probably only applies to th

Prep. To some, this word inspires dread. Some while away the hours with it, for campaigns never to be. Some people that don't play games have no idea the division I'm talking about, and for that they are ignorant, and thus blessed. I'm growing tired of prep. Deciding on stats, generating an idea for what happens next, and doing this everyweek. Luckily, I am very happy to brainstorm a concept for an encounter and completely improvise the rest at the table.  I am currently running a science-fantasy biological megadungeon using Vaults of Vaarn. Surprisingly, the megadungeon has been great for improv. Most megadungeon prep I have heard about seems very tedious: roll over and over for stocking rooms. Many variations on this method speed it up... but I find it ultimately uninspiring. It is tried and true prep, but it seems the reverse direction for creative design. Instead, I have some backup rooms, but brainstorm cool ideas for the actual rooms and encounters. In the week before

I'm pretty busy with work at the moment. I have been listening to some new music and watching more movies recently, and picking back up on Book of the New Sun in my little free time. I thought I would share some media that keeps the fire burning for me. (We should do more of these. Inspirational media is core to creative output!) Music The Holy Crag by DIM is a 40 minute medieval ambient album from an amazing dungeon synth artist. It's like if Music For Airports was conceived of in a medieval monastery. DIM is an incredible artist otherwise, you should listen to the whole discography. Echoes of Battle by Caladan Brood is an epic black metal album that is a tribute to the Malazan book series, which I read 6-7 (?) years ago. This album gets me fired up on my drives home from work. 7fingers is an album by Nils Frahm and Anne Müller that is an interesting mix of IDM and classical. It is a mix of fast synth-y beats, emotional cello (I think cello), and field recordings. Untrue

I observed some discussion on Matt Colville on Discord this morning, and it reminded me of an idea I had some time ago related to one of Matt's ideas, but taken a whole different way. I used to like Matt... just before I discovered the OSR. Then I left and haven't looked back. But I have some hazy memories that have resisted suppression. They haunt me, when I am alone late at night after a cancelled session (like yesterday, when I was too sick to run my usual game). Anyways, in one of Matt's videos, he classifies certain players as 'audience members,' meaning that they just sit back and watch the show. Matt (if I remember the video correctly), takes no umbrage at players doing this. Fine. I want to flip this classification around on the GM, and ask, if you have audience members at your table, are you writing a movie? After being immersed in OSR ideas for a while, this seems like a headache. Those familiar (which is probably everybody reading) will understand what I

DO YOU have rules lawyers at your table? Players who want to abuse mechanics in nonsensical ways? DO YOU have players that want strong narrative, want worldbuilding, and a sense of mystery without the monologues? DO YOU want to encourage engagement with the world and exploration across the map? Next time, try DIEGETICS. This is a tried and true solution to the above problems, and others you may encounter at YOUR, yes you, RPG session.  WHAT IS DIEGETICS? Diegetics (also known as Immersive Gaming) is playing an RPG by way of describing the world and its details as it is. Players then describe their actions, and the logic of the world is discussed to determine the outcome. You may roll dice if deemed reasonable (or just desired), but is not necessary. That's it! Three simple steps for easier, faster, more fun gaming! BUT SAM doesn't this hide information from the players unnecessarily?  NO. It does hide information, for example that a sword is magically sharp, but not unnecessari

I think I have more to say on the idea of combat as chess. I brought it up in this post , but it was one example of the potential detail of a fictional world (a theme I would like to revisit, at some point). But I want to expand on the idea, and why to do it. What is combat as chess? It's combat where you can make informed, player skill-based decisions in combat. That means the players know everything they need to make a plan: how far away are the enemies? How many? What are their strengths and weaknesses? The players have the opportunity to brainstorm and attempt a plan entirely of their choosing. It necessitates an open-information policy by the referee. You can't know if it's worth getting hit if you don't know how hard the enemy hits. Suspense is nice in a game, but if your character's life is on the line, making an informed decision can save you the pain of rolling a new one. The goal here is cost-benefit analysis: How can I make an optimal decision, given that

I ran a one-shot set in the Vietnam war with a friend during a car trip. I want to describe the character creation procedure, and propose a system based on that idea (we didn't use it at the time, but the thought occurred to me). Why that setting? Don't ask me, he picked it. The one-shot was a condensation of the movie Apocalypse Now . I came up with this one the fly using my Emergency Immersive Gaming guidelines. AKA I ripped it off from the movie. You can read the plot summary to get an idea of what it's about. I'm not looking to do a session report here. Instead, I want to talk about how the play went. I came up with a format for character stats on the fly. It was really simple: Of the usual six DnD stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA), which is your highest ability? We didn't actually use any numbers, we just decided to pick which stat was the highest had we assigned some numbers. He chose Charisma. He also got some hirelings, which he assigned highest abilitie

I have joined the fallen ranks of YouTubers and podcasters. Woe upon me. Anyways, it's available here . I discuss with some friends what the OSR is.

I'm reviewing a hexcrawl! Times that Fry Men's Souls on Lulu, and on DriveThru . From the creator's synopsis: A weird campaign setting for use with traditional fantasy rules. Crawl across 80 hexes of a demented Colonial New York and New Jersey, with 180+ encounters, 10 supernatural scenarios, and hooks for dozens more. Abundant tables are provided for the ease and inspiration of referees and players.  I ran about 4-6 weeks of play by post of this setting before life got in the way. I've been itching to return to it, so this is a small scratch of that itch. I ran this with base 24XX resolution, and created a list of skills. Players also rolled for period appropriate trinkets, character quirks, and were given plenty of free reign on their characters using the book's excellent tables. I also asked the group to come up with a desired starting activity, anything from privateering to just plain ol' traveling (one group took up on the privateering). Oh yeah, imme

I am a big fan of putting the cool stuff of a game in the adventure. As loot, or interactive elements in the constrained environment of a dungeon. I avoid games where the cool stuff is in the system. "Cool stuff" includes, but is not limited to, unusual powers, items, magical effects, character aspects, anything that hooks the players into wanting more of it. So then let's revisit my premise. I like cool stuff in the adventure, not in the system. The main reason is that it keeps players engaged with the fiction and the situation at hand. If the cool stuff is in the system, then players will figure out how to get to the cool stuff while avoiding the world. If you play XP  for gold, the players will find the path of least resistance to obtaining gold, so you shouldn't expect players to go into high-risk dungeons if they could become black marketeers or landlords instead. What's the problem? Mismatched expectations. You expect players to follow what you prepare, natu

Probably a year or two ago I read a blog post from outside the DnD-sphere, Reality has a surprising amount of detail . It stuck with me all this time, and eventually the little worm in my brain that this post spawned crawled and ate its way through my neatly compartmentalized mind into my DnD brain. I haven't reread the article since my first reading, but the title is what really stuck with me. The worm has digested this idea, and the result is a little nugget of an idea I want to expand upon here. The blog post talks first about how constructing a set of wooden steps, in a precise manner, is actually quite difficult. Figuring out how the pieces of wood should be cut, fit together, and secured take some planning and precision. This is all to make stairs that simply fit together. Bearing weight is another manner. The OSR is all about having a "realistic" world - one that operates on consistent internal logic, even with fantastical elements. That means if you really wanted

SKORNE is a wonderful game system and implied setting. I adore it. I wrote d66 backgrounds for PCs. Create a character following the usual procedure, but keep note of the rolls to generate the gold crowns a PC gets, noting them in d66 format (i.e. one is a tens digit, the other is a ones digit).  Then look up your background on the table below. Before you were a renegade... 11. You were a charcoal burner. Take a lump of charcoal. Your skin is soot black. 12. You were an onion farmer. Take a sack of onions. Your breath is repulsive. 13. You were a crackpot apothecary. Take a flask of a liquid that will put your guts into knots. Your eyebrows are burned off. 14. You were a drug dealer. Take a hallucinogen. You have an ugly scar on your face from a fight. 15. You were a slime fisher. Take a pole. You have weathered, leathery skin. 16. You were a execution herald. Take a horn. You are missing two fingers. ----- 21. You were a slaver. Take a whip. You have a fake eye. 22. You were a mad ph

White Hydra Many-headed sea serpent. Supposedly lives deep in the sea. Heads work like the usual fabled hydra. Blue Man A humanoid appearing in the last moments of those dying of exposure. He approaches the dying, touching them with a burning cold hand. He wraps them in a huge embrace, whispering to them of the immense warmth and cool awaiting them beyond sleep. Those who recover see him in the corner of their eye for the rest of their life. He is always pointing north. Alpine Demons Those who ascend the peaks of mountains risk encounters with the spirits who inhabit the trees of the upper slopes. They appear as starving men with stumps for feet, swinging from branch to branch using abnormally long arms. The demons speak in varying tones and timbres, taunting those on the ground, asking if they would join them. If approached, they grab a climber and fling them up high into the air, and they fall to their death. Furnace Grizzly A machine gone rogue. Shaped as a giant bear, it consumes a

 I bought a copy of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki yesterday. Today I finished the first section of the book, "Right Practice." I want to share how much I enjoyed this book. For context, I have had interest in Zen for about 10 years now. I was initially just interested in a meditation practice while in high school and college, but as I encountered more information on Zen Buddhism, I became more interested in learning more than just meditation (the irony is not lost on me, now). I kept a daily meditation practice off and on, for a year long streak at most,  and visited a Zendo when I lived in Chicago, Zen Chicago Meditation Community , which I highly recommend. I now live in . Alas. But I encountered this book at a bookstore yesterday. I had heard of it several times before, and said sure, I'll read it. I am glad I did. Even just a third of the way through the book, it has reminded me o

 This is now available, and for free: Silent Gardens by Sam W

 I'm Running a Megadungeon Though it's not open to the public (yet?) and just for friends, here's the campaign pitch:  There is an island at Urth's north pole. It is the last truly wet place. The future was once buried here, in the form of millions and millions of seeds for posterity. But now they have sprouted. They have grown together, genes splicing, mixing, and blending. They have grown, both up and down and into other beings as well, creating a bizarre ecosystem. The old vault now lies open, its depths waiting to be explored. This is hope. Urth may be restored from its xeric state. This is wealth. Some of these plants hold water very efficiently. This is danger. The proliferation risks overrunning every other living thing on the planet. This is history. Many of these plants have not flowered for epochs. This is the Orelian Gardens, an open table megadungeon set in Vaarn. Inspiration: - Annihilation (Jeff Vandermeer) - Dune (Herbert) - Chimera Ants (of Hunter x Hunt